The outbreak of hantavirus on board the cruise ship MV Hondius is unlikely to become an epidemic, the World 91色情片 Organization announced today.

In a press briefing, a panel of WHO scientists sought to quell worldwide fears over the outbreak and reassure the public that we aren鈥檛 about to see a repeat of the covid-19 pandemic. The panel also said it intended to stay until all journalists鈥� questions were answered and expressly stated that it was important that people not be alarmed by the cluster on the ship.

鈥淭his is not covid; this is not influenza,鈥� said WHO scientist 聽at the briefing. 鈥淭his is not the start of an epidemic; this is not the start of a pandemic.鈥�

So far, there have been five confirmed cases of hantavirus and three more suspected cases. Three of those who fell ill have died.

Two patients in hospital in the Netherlands and a person in intensive care in South Africa are all reported to be improving, the WHO said.

Hantaviruses are a group of viruses carried by rodents that can cause severe disease in humans. People usually get infected through contact with infected rodents or their urine, droppings or saliva.

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Tests in South Africa carried out on two passengers from the ship have identified the pathogen as Andes virus, the only known hantavirus that can spread from human to human.

It is also one of the hantaviruses known to cause a severe illness in humans called hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome, with a mortality rate of up to 50 per cent.

, director general of the WHO, said in a press briefing that because the incubation period of the virus is six weeks, it is possible more cases will be reported in coming weeks

However, the public health risks remain low because the virus requires close physical contact to transmit between people, and careful contact tracing and international cooperation will break the chain of transmission, said Ghebreyesus.

So far, every nation called on to assist in managing the crisis has cooperated fully, he said.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no need to panic the entire population,鈥� said Abdirahman Mahamud, also at the WHO.

He said only symptomatic, infected people should be isolated. Those who may have been exposed to the virus will only require 鈥渁ctive monitoring鈥�.

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Mahamud said the current situation is most analogous to an outbreak of Andes virus in Argentina between November 2018 and February 2019 that infected 34 people and caused 11 deaths. with approximately 100 guests. While the outbreak was serious, the virus didn鈥檛 go on to spread widely in the community.

鈥淭he main concern is the possibility of limited person-to-person transmission,鈥� at Stony Brook Medicine in New York state tells New Scientist. 鈥淗owever, such transmission appears to be inefficient and can typically be managed with standard isolation and quarantine precautions.鈥�

鈥淥verall, the risk of widespread transmission remains low, and the current level of concern may be greater than warranted,鈥� he says.

Marcos suspects a maximum of 10 to 15 people who were on the cruise will end up being infected. Quarantine of people from the cruise will be enough, he says, and there is 鈥渘o pandemic potential at all鈥�.

at Virginia Tech warns that the threat posed by hantaviruses should be taken seriously. 鈥淚 believe hantavirus has pandemic risk, especially hantavirus causing respiratory syndromes,鈥� he says.

in 2025 reporting that there were more hosts of the virus than previously known. They analysed over 14,000 blood samples for hantavirus from 49 species at 45 field sites, finding 296 positive samples across 15 rodent species, including six new species not previously reported as hosts. The team identified Colorado, Virginia and Texas as particular hotspots for the virus.

However, Escobar believes the public health measures being taken will mitigate the pandemic risk from the current outbreak.

Three people with suspected hantavirus have been evacuated from the cruise ship MV Hondius, following an outbreak that has killed three passengers. The evacuees will be given medical care in the Netherlands.

The ship departed Ushuaia, Argentina, on 1 April and followed an itinerary across the South Atlantic, with stops at Antarctica, South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, Saint Helena and Ascension Island.

Two people have died on the ship, and a third person died in South Africa two days after disembarking in Saint Helena. A British man who was also on the ship remains in intensive care in Johannesburg, South Africa.

A man in Switzerland who left the ship at the end of April has also reportedly tested positive for hantavirus after experiencing symptoms. Two British people who were on the ship but don鈥檛 have symptoms are self-isolating at home, the UK 91色情片 Security Agency has said.

What is hantavirus?

Hantaviruses are a group of viruses carried by rodents that can cause severe disease in humans. People usually get infected through contact with infected rodents or their urine, droppings or saliva.

In different parts of the world, there are different hantaviruses associated with different clinical syndromes. In the Americas, hantaviruses can cause a severe respiratory illness known as hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS), which kills up to 50 per cent of people diagnosed. In Europe and Asia, hantaviruses cause haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), which mainly affects the kidneys and blood vessels.

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Worldwide, it is estimated that around 10,000 to over 100,000 infections occur annually, with the highest rates of infection in Asia and Europe.

According to聽South Africa鈥檚 National Institute for Communicable Diseases, two people who came off the ship have tested positive for the Andes virus, a form of hantavirus that causes HCPS. This virus is thought to be able to transmit from human to human among close and prolonged contacts.

What are the symptoms of hantavirus?

The initial symptoms often include fever, muscle aches, headache and gastrointestinal symptoms. Some patients then progress to respiratory illness. Diagnosis is usually made through specialist blood tests.

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How is hantavirus spread?

The usual route of infection is exposure to infected rodents, particularly inhalation of virus from contaminated rodent urine, droppings or saliva.

鈥淭his is why investigations of suspected cases often focus on whether people may have had exposure to rodent-contaminated environments, food stores, cabins, storage areas or other enclosed spaces. Hantavirus is not generally considered easily transmissible between people,鈥� said at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in a statement.

Infection may also occur, although less commonly, through rodent bites. Activities that involve contact with rodents such as cleaning enclosed or poorly ventilated spaces, farming, forestry work and sleeping in rodent-infested dwellings increase exposure risk.

According to the WHO, human-to-human transmission has been documented only for Andes virus in the Americas and remains uncommon. When it occurs, transmission between people has been associated with close and prolonged contact, particularly among household members or intimate partners, and appears most likely during the early phase of illness, when the virus is more transmissible.

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How worrying is this outbreak?

at Lancaster University in the UK says people should not be alarmed. 鈥淗antavirus transmission typically requires contact with animal bodily products to transmit, rather than human to human,鈥� he says. 鈥淧recautions are being taken on board to minimise risk, but these are just precautions.鈥�

Hewson says it is important not to overinterpret the cruise ship setting. 鈥淭he fact that cases have been identified in people associated with the same vessel does not by itself tell us whether exposure occurred on the ship, before boarding, during shore excursions, or through some other shared environmental exposure,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat is precisely why public health investigations, laboratory confirmation and where possible, virus sequencing are important.鈥�

Viruses rely on the machinery of their host cells to produce proteins, but some giant viruses encode a key part of this toolkit in their genome, enabling them to direct the host cell to produce more of their own proteins. The discovery adds to the sense that giant viruses blur the boundary between living and non-living things.

Giant viruses have drawn growing attention from biologists since 2003, when a mystery microbe found in Bradford, UK, was first identified as a 鈥渕imivirus鈥�, which infects amoebae. Some are larger than typical bacteria, display intricate shapes and have hundreds of genes.

Some of these genes encode components of the machinery for translation, the step that turns genetic information into proteins. In cells, translation is carried out by structures called ribosomes and is initiated by molecular assemblies called initiation complexes.

To determine whether giant viruses possess a comparable system, at Harvard Medical School and his colleagues examined what happens inside infected amoebae and how the mimivirus manipulates the host machinery once infection begins.

The team isolated ribosomes from infected cells and identified viral proteins associated with them. 鈥淭hat was the first hint that they could be the factors we were looking for,鈥� says Fels.

Then they knocked out the genes encoding the viral complex by replacing them with altered DNA sequences so the virus could no longer produce the corresponding proteins. This caused viral production to drop by up to 100,000-fold, and the formation of new infectious particles was drastically impaired.

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Together, the findings suggest that the viral complex steps in to redirect the host鈥檚 protein-synthesis machinery during infection, ensuring that viral structural proteins are produced in large amounts. The experiments suggest they can do this even under harsh conditions, such as nutrient deprivation and oxidative stress, which typically reduce protein synthesis in host cells.

The discovery raises a deeper evolutionary question: how did these viruses acquire such a capability? Some researchers think giant viruses are descended from vanished cellular life forms, but others think they originated as normal viruses that stole genes from their hosts.

鈥淕iant viruses have acquired a wide range of cellular machinery from their eukaryotic hosts throughout their evolution,鈥� says at Virginia Tech, who wasn鈥檛 involved in the study. Gene exchange can occur during infection, and over long evolutionary timescales, natural selection may retain genes that confer an advantage.

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Many of the largest viruses hijack single-celled organisms such as amoebae, and the environment within them that may fluctuate more than the relatively stable tissues of multicellular hosts. Therefore, retaining flexible control over protein synthesis could offer a selective advantage, says Aylward.

The work also leaves key questions unresolved. The mimivirus genome encodes around 1000 proteins, yet the functions of most are still unknown. For example, it isn鈥檛 yet clear how precisely these viruses regulate protein production over the course of a single infection cycle.

鈥淰iruses have long been considered rather passive entities in the evolution of living systems,鈥� says at Kyoto University in Japan. 鈥淭his study shows that giant viruses can reshape molecular systems that are otherwise stably conserved across the domains of life.鈥�